The increasingly brutal police response to protests over the construction of The Dakota Access Pipeline has pushed the debate over the safety of oil infrastructure into the national spotlight. From the beginning of their anti-pipeline organizing, the Standing Rock
Očhéthi Šakówiŋ
has voiced their concerns about the environmental impact of the project, pointing to the fact that an earlier proposal for the pipeline route was rejected due to concerns over potential contamination of majority white town
Bismarck, North Dakota’s water supply.

Oil industry supporters argue that pipelines are safer alternative to hauling fuel by tanker trucks or freight trains. “Environmental analysis comparing pipelines to rail finds pipelines will result in fewer incidents, barrels released, personal injuries, and greenhouse gas emissions,” says John Stoody, a spokesperson for the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, in a statement to CityLab. He cites an environmental impact statement conducted by the U.S. State Department comparing the impact of rail delivery of crude oil to that of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Additionally, a 2013 study from the conservative Manhattan Institute found that road transportation had an annual accident rate of 19.95 incidents per billion ton miles and rail transportation had 2.08 incidents per billion ton miles, compared to 0.89 incidents per billion ton miles for natural gas transmission and 0.58 serious incidents per billion ton miles for hazardous liquid pipelines.

To better understand the extent of this damage, CityLab mapped out all significant pipeline accidents between 1986 and 2016, based on federal data compiled by Richard Stover, an environmental advocate and former research astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

oh boy this combines two of my favorite things, timeloop aus and clint and loki. why have I never written a timeloop au? they’re one of my favorite goddamn tropes ever. anyway though

so let’s say this one is set around the fall of SHIELD when clint probably ends up in some kind of hot water cause he’s, you know, not HYDRA, and I am torn between wanting this to be a “loki intervenes” kind of situation (because loki’s weird protective/possessive feelings about clint) or a “they just kind of run into each other” kind of situation (because surprise!!! have fun kids)

but anyway I figure they end up stuck, maybe in a situation where they’re trying to escape? and the terminating point of the loop is definitely when clint dies, because that’s just how we do here in veliseraptor land, and also this means that loki’s attempts to fuck off and leave clint on his own do noooot work. (or vice versa.) it quickly becomes clear that their best chances for survival and getting out of this goddamn situation is to work together.

there is at least one time, somewhere after they’ve been doing this for a while, where loki basically lets himself get killed - that’s very obvious it’s what he’s doing - and when that particular iteration concludes clint is like “what the fuck was that” and loki’s like “well we didn’t know what happened if I died, I figured I should test the theory” and clint is like “by dying?? what if it didn’t reset???” and loki’s like “well then I guess we’d know how to stop this” and clint is…a little disturbed, like, there is definitely something wrong with that

other things that don’t work: trying to call in help, i.e. natasha. that ends in nat dying and that fucks up clint for like, three cycles. loki is…sympathetic. but really bad at it. clint’s like “fuck whoever is doing this, fuck them so hard” and loki’s like “well at least we can agree on that”

it’s funny, clint thinks, and also sort of terrifying, how quickly enmity bleeds away when there’s only one other person who knows what’s going on, like, he wants to be able to hold onto being angry but it’s hard, and that scares him, because what if that’s exactly what loki is trying to do, to bleed all the fight out of him and make clint his creature in another way

Maybe in 2017 you will finally learn to take a hint. Like, when the universe is trying to tell you to stop doing the thing, maybe stop doing the fucking thing. Because you know the universe is always right and you are always wrong. Let’s work on that, shall we?

The intro to Reshef of Destruction, showing a bunch of fire, Reshef in the flames, the Egyptian God Cards turning to stone, and the Millennium Items scattering across the world, before revealing Pegasus/Sol Chevalsky as the cause of all the trouble.

In the book of Habakkuk, the Lord had given Habakkuk a
vision of the coming destruction and exile of the nation of Israel by the hands
of the Babylonians. The Babylonians were a fierce and strong nation, known for
their total brutality in conquering other nations at that time. They were known
as people who lived completely opposite to the ways of the Lord. When Habakkuk
received this word from God, he knew it was sure to happen. Life as he and the
people of Israel knew it was about to change completely. He knew that when the
Babylonians came and invaded Israel, they would spare no violence in making
sure that they were conquered.

Verse 17 (above) lists six different things that would be
taken away when this coming destruction happened. The people would be
impoverished and hungry. Normal life as they knew it was about to be over. But
Habakkuk says something amazing: “I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy
in the God of my salvation”! His hope was not in the food being in the fields
or the cattle being in the stalls. His hope was in “the God of my salvation.” He
knew that God was in control and that all of his strength and endurance came
from God. He trusted God to give him the strength to get through all that was
coming. His feet would be like the deer’s, meaning that he would be able to walk
in difficult times of life with ease and light-heartedness.

This is the same never-changing God that we worship. Our
salvation, strength, and hope comes from Him! He is trustworthy. We do not have
to put our hope in the circumstances of life, whether everything is going great
or everything is catastrophic. God is the ultimate source of strength and hope.
Let’s put our faith and hope in Him today.

Millionth thought about “Burn” I’ve had this month: Eliza goes for Hamilton’s jugular – but not by repeating the insults we’ve heard before, (arrogant, loud mouthed, obnoxious, son of a whore, bastard, etc…) She rips Hamilton up on the thing he’s most known for, what he’s most proud of – his WRITING. His SENSELESS sentences, his SELF OBSESSED and PARANOID tone. She’s tearing him up about not just the CONTENT of the Reynolds Pamphlet, but the way in which he wrote it. She takes the time in the middle of her rage to mock his style, which is such a rap battle move.

And what is she going to do with all of the beautiful writing he gave her over the years, his letters?

A pipeline owned by the same company behind Dakota Access leaked 55,000 gallons of gasoline into a major river, endangering the drinking water of six million people.

A pipeline managed by Sunoco Logistics burst Thursday night after heavy rainfall in Pennsylvania. The spill dumped 55,000 gallons of gasoline into Wallis Run, a tributary of the Loyalsock Creek that drains into the Susquehanna River. The breach was detected at 3 am when the pressure of the pipeline dropped significantly, leading Sunoco to shut down the pipeline. Though the pipeline has been shut down, the heavy rains that led to the leak are expected to continue, so the actual break in the pipeline will remain unidentified until the weather clears. The Pennsylvania water authorities have warned customers to refrain from using water from the river as a precaution. No official data has been released regarding how long the ban on water use will continue.

The Susquehanna had previously been declared the third most endangered river in the US by the NGO American Rivers. It has come under threat due to the development of the natural gas industry, particularly the practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Fracking has caused major problems in the US due to the so-called “Cheney’s loophole” that exempts natural gas companies from the vast majority of US environmental regulations. Many other rivers in the US are endangered by fracking. American Rivers has said that fracking “poses one of the greatest risks our nation’s rivers have faced in decades. We are taking a major gamble on the clean drinking water for millions of Americans.”